The Vivisectionist (48 page)

He stepped around the pool of blood again and returned to the examination room. A quick look around turned up no knife, but he did find some wickedly sharp instruments in one of the unlocked cabinets. The tool he chose measured almost eight inches long and looked like a miniature saw. The leading edge was serrated, and then became a straight, razor-sharp edge. Jack admired the reflective gleam and headed back to the body.

Jack arranged the hand on the floor so that the right index finger was spread from the rest of the hand. He backed away as far as he could and raised the knife a couple of feet above the finger. He swung. The bone stopped the leading edge of the blade. The butt of the blade clanged against the floor. Jack grunted and frowned. He pulled the end of the finger and sawed through the second knuckle easily.

Pinching the severed finger between his index finger and thumb, Jack returned to the door. He lined up the finger on the reader and swiped. The red light flashed twice as the unit beeped a rejection.

“Shit!” exclaimed Jack. He looked around quickly, suddenly conscious of himself.

Jack backed away from the door and tried to see it for the first time. His face lit up as he realized his mistake—the reader was on the left side of the door, so it might read only the left hand. He also realized that it might not be keyed to an index finger. The thumb was another likely candidate.

He set the finger on the floor and returned to the body to collect the other digits. The left hand was harder to get at—when the man had collapsed, he had pinned his left hand underneath himself. Jack worked the arm free, still trying to stay clean. The index finger was easy, but the thumb gave Jack problems. He couldn’t seem to find a gap between bones and ended up sawing down the side of the man’s hand.

Now, with both hands gripping a severed digit, Jack returned to the door. He tried the thumb first. He figured it was least likely to be the one, and he wanted to eliminate it. The red light flashed and the unit beeped.

Jack set the thumb down and tried his last hope. He flubbed the swipe and the red light flashed once, with no noise. He took a deep breath, exhaled and then tried again. Jack dropped the finger in his excitement when the light flashed green. He heard a distant buzzing and a light "click" near the door handle.

With no thought about the consequences, Jack reached out and pulled open the door. As the door opened, Jack had a brief glimpse of a tall figure on the other side, silhouetted by bright lights. Two metal probes shot out from the figure. Jack heard a tiny explosion from the man’s Tazer, followed by a crackle that seemed to come from inside Jack’s head.

Just before his neck tightened, Jack’s gaze flew to his own chest where a red dot, centered on his heart, was framed by two metal spikes trailing tiny wires.

The man stalked down the hall. The boy barely registered the approach of his pursuer.  Some deep part of the boy’s brain still harbored hope and for one absurd moment he wished the man would walk right by. That hope died as the man drew alongside the boy and stopped. The man bent down and grabbed the boy’s ankles.

The boy slumped as the man dragged him by the ankles away from the wall. His head flopped back and struck the floor; he looked up into the bright lights. They burned blue and yellow negatives on his eyes. He couldn’t see any of the man’s features—the glare and after-image were still affecting his eyes.

With one hand, the man lifted the boy by the collar of the the lab coat. The man grabbed his shoulders and turned him around, pushing him towards the door. Reaching over the boy’s shoulder, the man opened the door. The door swung open to reveal an exam room; either the same one the boy had been trapped in before, or one exactly like it.

The deep part of the boy’s brain, buried under layers and layers of numbness, acknowledged the exam room and registered no surprise.

The man's rough hand pressed the boy forward and he zombie-walked towards the chair. The man moved him like a puppet, sitting him down and arranging his limbs in the chair before strapping him down. Back in the man’s chair, the boy felt an urge to protest—he had come so close to escaping, and could have tried his luck at the window. His urge to fight began to rekindle as the man tightened the straps. Despite this new activity deep in his thoughts, the boy’s expression remained slack and lifeless.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said the man.

Now the boy wanted to struggle, but his limbs felt far away and foreign.

“I’ve seen it all before. You came really close. I thought you were going to be the one. We could have learned a lot from each other.”

In his desperation, the boy finally found his own voice.

“Wait,” said the boy. “You lied to me before.”

The man grew serious, and answered slowly — “I told you exactly what I needed to tell you.”

“You said I would forget all this some day, and that it would be okay. But now you’re going to hurt me, aren’t you?” the boy asked.

“That’s very astute,” said the man. “You get bonus points for paying attention, but I’m afraid they’re not going to help you much.” He paused and gathered his thoughts. “If you had passed all the tests, you would have remained unscathed. Unfortunately, you’ve failed today, and that means I have no more use for you.”

“Then why am I still strapped to this chair?” asked the boy.

“I follow a method,” explained the man. “Strapping you to the chair is part of that method. It’s like when your mom tells you to fasten your seatbelt, but you’ve already got it on. She can’t help saying that—it’s a compulsion. I’m the same way with this chair.”

The boys eyes darted left and right, while he tried to figure out how the man knew about his mom. She always told him to buckle up, even after he'd just done it. That was one of their private jokes. He wondered how long the man had been spying on him, or perhaps if he could just read minds.

“I can’t read your mind,” said the man. “If that’s what you were wondering.”

The man walked past the boy and pulled open a drawer. Straining to look over his shoulder, the boy saw the man drawing clear liquid into a syringe.

“So, what are you going to do to me?” asked the boy.

“Well,” the man walked back to the boy and held up the syringe, “this is going to put you to sleep. Then, I’m going to move you to that tub and bleed you out.”

“Why?” asked the boy. His voice wavered.

“Honestly, you’re just not the one I wanted, so now I have to get rid of you and move on to the next one,” replied the man.

“I can be the one you want,” said the boy. “Just tell me what to do.”

“I can’t tell you how to be a fearless predator,” said the man. “I might as well tell you to be a different species.”

“But you said I came really close,” said the boy.

“You did. You escaped when you were supposed to, evaded me, killed that cat. You did almost everything. But I needed to see that extra bit of ruthlessness,” said the man. 

“Just give me one more chance,” said the boy. “I’ll do it right.”

“Okay,” said the man. “Just this once.”

The man grabbed the boy’s wrist and pulled his arm to straighten it. A vein popped up on the boy’s arm, and the man pierced it quickly and accurately with his needle. A second later and the boy felt a warm flood spill over his senses.

“Why?” asked the boy again. He meant to ask more, but it was all that would come out.

“There’s no second chance,” said the man as he pulled out the needle.

The boy felt himself slipping away.

Stephen ran out of the exam room and then away from the dead man to his right. He clutched the knife with the tip facing down. He saw several doors down the hall and reached one on the right first.

The door opened inward and had a light switch on the wall next to the frame. Stephen pushed open the door and then flicked on the lights. A single bare bulb lit up a storage closet. Gray metal shelves lined one wall and held stacks of big bottles. To him they looked like large bleach bottles like the one his mom kept in their laundry room.  

He shut the closet and moved down down the hall. Stephen didn’t want to get boxed in to a small space. The next door looked serious—big, solid, and metal, but it was locked.

A few feet down, a door was cracked open. Stephen pushed it open and immediately backed up, closing the door again. He remembered that smell. It was the smell of the gas that had made him pass out. He cracked the door enough to feel around the corner and found a switch on the wall. When he flipped the switch, lights came on in the room and he pushed the door open but he stayed in the hallway.

He saw the pole and the cage. He pulled up his shirt to cover his mouth and nose and stepped into the room. The gas wasn't nearly as strong, and barely made him light-headed. The pole was no help to him. He gave it a try, but couldn't even climb the rope in gym class, so he didn't expect to get anywhere. The room had no other obvious exits.

Something about the ceiling caught his attention. Not a particular feature—the ceiling was smooth and white, except for the big hole around where the pole came through—but it stood much higher in here than in the other rooms or the hall. He poked his head back in the hall, saw only the dead guy, and looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling was definitely lower in the hall. He shut the door to the pole room and tried the rest of the doors. They were all locked.

He checked back in the closet. The ceiling was definitely lower, and it was a drop-ceiling, a grid of acoustic tiles. He wondered what he would find above those tiles.

He closed the door behind himself and went to the far end of the closet. The neatly stacked bottles didn’t go quite all the way to the wall. He set the knife down on a shelf, put his foot up on the second shelf, and carefully tested how much weight it would hold. It didn’t budge under his full weight so he climbed up the shelves until he reached the tiles. Stephen paused for a second to consider his options. He could go back down the hallway towards the dead guy, but Jack might have woken up, and Jack had a gun.

With no more deliberation, Stephen pushed against one of the half-tiles near the wall and slid it to the side. The drywall continued above the ceiling for another six inches or so and then ended. There he found at least three feet of space above the ceiling, filled with dust, pipes, beams, and cables. He grabbed one of the beams and climbed, putting all his weight on the big supports. Once he pulled his feet through, he balanced with one hand while he slid the tile back into place. It was dark, but enough light came through the top of the ceiling fixtures so that his eyes quickly adjusted.

Immediately in front of him, the top of a stud wall rose to meet the beams he clung to. He figured it was the back wall of the closet. Just past this wall, he could see another drop ceiling, but there didn’t appear to be any light down in this room. He saw the top of an unlit fixture ahead. He wished that he had stopped to steal a flashlight from Jack before leaving the examination room.